Portal:Current events/2012 October 11

Current events of October 11, 2012 (2012-10-11) (Thursday)

Armed conflicts and attacks A gunman kills Qassem M. Aqlan, the Yemeni chief of security employed at the U.S. embassy in the capital, Sana'a. (BBC) Syrian civil war: the Local Coordination Committees say that by evening 83 civilians were killed throughout Syria by the Syrian army. (CNN) Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah confirms that the drone aircraft shot down over Israel's Negev Desert on 6 October belonged to the organization and was supplied by Iran. (Reuters) (Al Jazeera) Business and economics Oil giant Shell is sued by Niger Delta farmers in a civil court in The Hague, claiming oil spills ruined their livelihoods. Shell says it is difficult to carry out repairs because of local insecurity. (BBC) Disasters Heavy rain in the United Kingdom causes flash flooding in the coastal village of Clovelly, Devon, damaging homes and pulling up cobbles in the street. (BBC) Health The Marie Stopes organisation is to open the first private clinic to offer abortions to women in Northern Ireland from 18 October. (BBC) (RTÉ) Seven prisoners from Amasya Prison in Turkey say that they began "indefinite and irreversible" hunger strikes on October 5, and their health is at serious risk. (Dicle Haber) International relations Turkey says investigators found Russian-made ammunition and military communications equipment in a Syrian passenger plane heading to Damascus from Moscow. Syria accuses Turkey of aircraft piracy, says the plane did not carry the alleged equipment and challenges Turkey to show evidence. (Reuters) (Al Jazeera) (The Hindu) (SANA) Law and Crime A U.S. appeals court has overturned a district court order that had banned the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus in the US, delivering a winning round for Google's Android against Apple Inc.. (Reuters) Englishman Barry Thew is sentenced to four months in jail after a t-shirt he wore is deemed to offend public morality. (BBC) (Spiked) Literature Chinese author Mo Yan, famous for working in the style of writing known as hallucinatory realism, wins the Nobel Prize in Literature. (BBC) Politics and elections Egypt's President Mohammed Mursi fires general prosecutor Abdel Maguid Mahmoud. (BBC)